Why E. Coli Still Makes Its Way Into Your Meat Supply
Before you bite into that juicy hamburger, you might want to better understand how the meat industry creates, tests (or doesn't test), then distributes ground beef. A detailed investigation by Michael Moss at the New York Times proves eating it is "still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe."
For one thing, food companies save money on ground beef by buying scraps of meat from multiple suppliers, instead of using cuts of whole meat. Two years ago, food giant Cargill was responsible for an outbreak of E. coli here in the states that left a woman paralyzed in the fall of 2007. The product responsible, "American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties," was made from a mixture of meat sources:
Grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.
What's more troubling is that although the USDA recommends that grinders test each source of meat first for contamination, most don't because it would eat into profits. That's why Cargill never knew where the bad meat came from, even though it detected E. coli in a finished batch of burgers several months before the 2007 outbreak.
The United States Department of Agriculture, which allows grinders to devise their own safety plans, has encouraged them to test ingredients first as a way of increasing the chance of finding contamination.
Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder's discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.
So does any company put safety over profits? Is there any way to find safe ground beef without having to buy steak yourself and pay a butcher to grind it? Try Costco. For the last 10 years, they've been voluntarily testing all of their meat before grinding.
Craig Wilson, Costco's food safety director, said the company decided it could not rely on its suppliers alone. "It's incumbent upon us," he said. "If you say, ‘Craig, this is what we've done,' I should be able to go, ‘Cool, I believe you.' But I'm going to check."
Costco said it had found E. coli in foreign and domestic beef trimmings and pressured suppliers to fix the problem. But even Costco, with its huge buying power, said it had met resistance from some big slaughterhouses. "Tyson will not supply us," Mr. Wilson said. "They don't want us to test."
That's why Costco sounds like one of the safest bets you can make if you buy ground beef. By comparison, a 2007 survey of grinders showed that only 6% of them followed Costco's safety protocol of testing source meat before grinding, while half of them didn't even bother to test the finished product.
"E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection" [New York Times]
(Photo: VirtualErn)
Post a comment
Comments:
CostCo FTW
I didn't think I'd ever let that slip out of my face, but CostCo's meat is really good. We did a steak-off once from a few grocery chains pitting against eachother and CostCo took the cake, for sure. They have more generous cuts and better quality beef.
I wonder what the rest of their meat is like in comparison to other places.
Also, it seems like that woman bought pre-made frozen patties. Does CostCo even have any branded items that are similar?
I love meat and thought I was immune to being grossed out by the slaughtering process, but this story made my stomach turn. I'd never quite figured out where E. Coli came from or how it got on the meat itself...and yeah. It's pretty gross. I love my burgers rare, this is definitely making me think twice. Naaaaasty.
@bornonbord: What you say is true: they do, but they are their own "Kirkland Signature" house brand.
It's a great article but there are probably a dozen different voices this morning saying, "We've known about this for ages."
And good for Costco, as I am a Costco disciple. mmmmm, Costco cake.
@bornonbord: What you say is true: I've heard good things about Costco...there's a BJ's and a Sam's near me, but the nearest Costco is a bit of a drive, so it's not worth me getting a membership. Sigh.
This problem is so preventable. All it requires is implementation of, adherence to and enforcement of testing policies. The problem with any of these things is that it all gets plugged into a big financial model to determine how much adequate testing will cost, what the probability of an "event" is, how much such an "event" will impact the bottom line of the company, and how much can be saved by operating in a manner that doesn't require full testing.
The good news is that there are emerging technologies that are able to dramatically reduce the time it takes to detect e.coli in organic matter. There's a new diagnostic technology called "BioNanoPore" which reduces testing time from up to 24 hours down to 4 hours. This same technology is able to achieve similar time savings in a variety of diagnostics for bacteria and microorganisms. Cool stuff. All it will take is the will of businesses to decide that the safety of their customers should be a more significant component of their profit margins, and the political will of politicians to make it happen.
I, too, love Costco.
It is alarming about the lack of safety. It's a shame, too, because I consider our food in the US to be relatively cheap. It seems that a few more pennies per pound, passed to the consumer, would be a small price to pay.
The problem is that unless everyone does it, no one is willing to risk higher prices driving customers to the competition.
The real story is actually worse than this. Non existent sanitation protocols in supermarkets mean that even if your meat is not already tainted with E. coli, it is likely to be contaminated with other bacteria.
Additionally, supermarkets should be logging the batches of meat they grind, as well as disassembling and cleaning the grinder between different meats or establishment codes. Neither of these happens as often as it should.
Would it be better to buy whole cuts of beef and grind them yourself? I know you can buy standalone meat grinders, and you can buy meat grinder attachments for Kitchen Aid stand mixers. Would this prevent E. Coli at all?
After reading that yesterday, vegetarianism has rarely looked so tempting.
One word: Irradiation. Simple, safe, and, once popular, cheap.
I love Costco, but I have to point out that this wouldn't work for cheap stuff. Without having bought ground beef in years I can guarantee you can find cheaper ground beef than at Costco. Not better, and not even the same quality cheaper, but cheaper ground beef nonetheless. This is because Costco's approach is to sell mid- to upper-market stuff in all categories.
Finally, ground beef needs to be cooked well. Its massive surface area, combined with the possibility of contamination from multiple sources, means that just getting to the store without e. coli does not guarantee safety. If you like it bloody, use whole meat, not ground.
Simple solution = grind your own beef. It's really not that hard, doesn't take expensive gear, and you control everything.
Your local meat cutter / butcher shop is also a great place to buy meat. That is, the stand-alone shops that are not part of some megamart. If you find a good meat cutter, you can pick the cuts you want ground and they do it right in front of you. It is a bit more expensive but for some the peace of mind and taste are well worth it.
This is the NY Times pushing the sensationalist button and trying to sell newspapers. Nothing new here.
If you've been paying attention, the USDA now follows a NASA (*HAACP) designed inspection protocol that has far more tests and checks to ensure capture and reduction of bad product.
Upton Sinclair's original book was the impetus for federal rules regarding inspection and approval of meat products.
* On July 25th, 1996, USDA announced the Pathogen Reduction and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems final rule. This rule calls for:
Mandatory HACCP systems
Microbiological testing (generic E. coli and Salmonella)
Sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs)
HACCP was developed by food microbiologists; however, it is not limited to controlling microbiology safety. It can be used to control the full range of physical, chemical and biological factors that affect the safety of a food product. HACCP is a preventative system in which safety is designed into the food formulation and the production process.
We aren't eating just any old meat, everything you see in the market these days has been vetted nine ways to hell and back -before- you've even seen it.
No food product is perfect, but these plans the USDA put in place -last century- (ok, 1996) have greatly reduced the sales of contaminated meat.
And yes, they are really strict. The average meat processor gets cleaned for 8 plus hours every day, along with testing for other contaminants, the programs are catching sub par food products and removing them from the delivery chain before they get to the store.
-------------------------------------------------------
The Times article is misleading, it infers that food processors routinely avoid the testing due to profits.
That is a blatant lie, because in order to pass the USDA certification, samples are taken at random, test swabs are taken from processing surfaces (conveyor belts, cutting table tops, and every place that could harbor any of the suspected bacteria.
No certification, no meat processing takes place.
None.
And all they have to do is fail one serious test, and it all -stops- until the entire building and contents has been checked.
We bought a cow and had it processed locally. We currently have 92 lbs of ground beef from our cow in the deep freezer, along with many other cuts. I do not worry about e. coli and won't for the next two years. I don't think meat from the grocery store is safe to eat anymore so we don't buy it.
People people people...don't you understand, anything that interferes with profit is BAD. So combine that with the consumers demand for low prices and we get crap products whether they are cars, meat, airline tickets or what have you.
We refuse to (majority in my opinion) or are unable to (sadly a lot of struggling people out there) pay for quality, so we get crap.
@pecan 3.14159265: I don't know the answer, but the advantage to grinding your own is that you know exactly what is in the burger (meaning, it isn't beef byproducts as described in the article). I use the Kitchenaide attachment. I think the only issue is that the attachment is difficult to clean.
The lack of transparency about the food supply chain is why I stopped eating meat 2 years ago. I'm not a PETA type person, but I do like having some idea about what I am putting in my body, and meat seems risky. It seems like between the pharmaceuticals in the municipal water supply, E. Coli in meat (and some vegetables too), and mercury in fish, there's really nothing left to eat/drink! Too bad I can't live on wine alone (though I still try!).
@pecan 3.14159265: Nothing will "prevent" E. Coli, but yes, I believe it will reduce the chances. IIRC, Alton mentioned that fact when making his own hambugerlers.
This is a good reason to go out and find a local butcher shop. In my experience they will be more than happy to grind up pretty much any cut you want- no filler, no scraps, and no shit.
@pecan 3.14159265: It's not that whole cuts don't have E Coli, it's that whole cuts are from a single source and are slightly easier to verify because you're just dealing with the one manufacturer. However ensuring that this source tests each and every batch and discards or sells off (more likely) batches that come back positive is when the difficulty increases. If Costco can't get the manufacturers to cut the bs, a single consumer has no hope.
@uptown: Here's why:
"...it would eat into profits."
The simple answer is greed. If a company- any company- can make more money by NOT doing something, they will. That's capitalism, to make as much money as you can. But what about the government? Well, greed is universal- take the money for the e. coli tests and give it to the politician. Problem solved- and you can keep on making as much money as you can.
@bitslammer: Only if you have a farm and your own testing equipment. The meat still has to come from somewhere and even if it's from your own backyard, E Coli can still be present.
@Hoss: It's much more rare in vegetables, and cleaning them before you prepare them is a pretty effective way to get rid of E. coli.
@bobpence: In my area, Costco's meats are comparably priced to all of my local grocery stores except the Walmart supercenter. And frankly, I would rather pay the extra ten cents on Costco ground beef than get Walmart's anonymous meat in a tube.
I represented a meat company that made hot dogs among other products. I watched hot dogs being made. I still eat hot dogs. I have no idea why.
This is not usually the case. With whole cuts you can rinse the meat off and remove any bacteria that are on the outside of the meat.
E. Coli is not usually found on the "inside" of a cut like a tenderloin since E. Coli is normally in the intestines, so rinsing it off and grinding it would be sufficient.
@TinkishDelight: You're reducing your risk though by not using byproducts. I still wouldn't trust American ground meat not to be infected with BSE
has anyone seen fastfood nation? bruce willis char says something along the line of, there is a little shit in all the meat you eat, you just need to cook it and you will be fine.
i always order my burgers medium well to well done.
Almost 100 years after Concrete Jungle came out, and we're still having problems like this.
So much for the invisible hand of market forces. More like virus laden poop of market greed.
@Gravitational Eddy: Um, how come there are untraceable outbreaks then? My understanding is HACCP involves the factories monitoring themselves, which would seem to be a conflict of interest. Again, the empirical evidence clearly shows that this approach isn't working.
@TinkishDelight: It's actually worse than that. The whole cuts aren't such a safe bet because a particular supermarket won't just use one beef loin. They will have several boxes of beef loins from which the steaks came. If that particular cut is on sale, that means that they're going through several boxes of loins a day.
The problem is that all those boxes don't come from the same packing company. Most of the time they do, but there's really no guarantee. So if you bought a steak, took it home, tested it positive for E-coli, and brought it back, they still couldn't trace it very far.
Even if all the loins came from the same packing company, if the packing company is buying meat from several different slaughterhouses, they'll never be able to trace the bacteria to the source. The ONLY way this MIGHT be possible is if the store tested every loin before cutting it. If that particular piece has a stamp on it, they can use that as a starting point, and there may be some sort of a paper trail related to that particular piece of beef.
Unfortunately, not all pieces have stamps, (if I recall correctly), and even if they did, I'm not sure how far back that could take you. BTW, I was a meat cutter at a supermarket for six years, and while this place actually had pretty high quality standards (only worked with a small number of meat suppliers), it still wasn't perfect.
Even though it was company policy to thoroughly clean knives/tables/saws/grinders before processing a different species, this wasn't always followed, especially with grinders. So many times, after grinding beef all day, we would have to grind a small amount of pork, and instead of cleaning out the grinder, we would just throw out the first handful of product that came out that was visibly a mix of species, and grind the rest.
Then when it was time to grind beef again, we'd do the same thing. Throw in a little bit of beef, run it through, and that would push out any, (well most), pork that was still in the pipe. You were then good to go. Again, this wasn't done too often, but it did happen.
At the end of the day, you are your own best protection. Grocery chains aren't testing your food because it costs money, and aren't always following proper safety protocols because it's a pain in the ass. Be smart and informed, and you'll be OK. BTW, I buy my meat EXCLUSIVELY from the chain I used to work for, even though I didn't leave on the best of terms. I may not have any love lost for the company, but damn do they have some good steaks. :D
I just don't understand why anyone is eating ground beef to begin with. It doesn't really TASTE like anything, and I imagine it's more of a habit to use it than anything else. We don't eat meat at all, but I get the appeal of a perfectly grilled steak or prime rib or even the craving for a homestyle pot roast. But when was the last time you had a GREAT meal where ground beef was the star? (Yes, meatloaf, I guess...but giving up excellent meatloaf seems a sacrifice, and I've had more bad meatload than good.)
Unless you're going for that big gourmet burger, Morningstar Farms Griller's Prime tastes pretty much like a fast food burger patty. Put a little oil on it to get that greasy taste going, fry it up in a pan and by the time you put the cheese, toppings and condiments on it, you won't be able to tell the difference.
@TCama: You go ahead, my man. As for me, if I'm gonna die, at least I'll die happy, with a bloody steak clenched between my teeth. But hey, brussel sprouts are just as manly.
Our local Sam's Club has big sirloin roasts that are cheaper per pound than the ground beef that they sell. I got a grinder attachment for our stand mixer, and now I grind my own. I also make sausage from boston butt.
I was in Vegas in September and one of the things that surprised me as a Canadian is that restaurants ask you how you want your hamburger cooked. And they will cook it from raw up to well done.
I'm surprised that restaurants are willing to take a risk with bad publicity and potentially severe health impacts to their customers.
I buy my ground beef from the local supermarket because they grind in store. I would never buy the prepared frozen patties because I have no idea where they're from and if they were kept at the right temps during shipping.
I read the article yesterday and it was pretty damning and reinforced Fast Food Nation's arguments. However, I was more interested in the motivation for the producers not to test, which was awfully similar to the predicament these two men are in with their disease in this other Times Op-Ed, [www.nytimes.com] on the problems with health insurance. Similar to the producers, if these men get tested for PKD and it comes back positive, they lose their insurance; if the producers find E.Coli in their meat, they lose their ability to sell confirmed untainted meat to distributors.
Either way, both of these systems, Agriculture and Healthcare, seem to be suffering from the same business paradoxes... such shitty business models, rewarding deception and moral ambiguity.
@bitslammer: @morlo: This is still a matter of odds and percentages, it's not an actual elimination nor a real solution. Why go through all the trouble and expense of buying tenderloin and still not be assured that your meat is E Coli free (I won't even point out the sacralige involved in turning a prime cut into a patty)?
Really, the "simple" solution would just be to thoroughly cook your meat. Heat kills E Coli and any other bacteria that may be present. Or just tough it up and continue ordering your burger rare because the chances of you being the one to bite the dust are pretty slim :o)
@flamincheney: Yeah, local butcher shops are great. Like the one where the cutter told me that their $6.00/lb ribeye was prime. He's either an incompetent dumb fuck or a bold faced lyar, because I know a thing or two about meat (having been a cutter myself for six years), and that shit was anything BUT. I know what prime cuts look like, and while this was a good looking steak, it was very obvious it wasn't prime. I still bought it just because I like to try steaks from different places, and it didn't taste like a prime cut either. I guess for the money it was OK, but I don't mind paying more for better quality food, and have continued to do so to this very day.
What I'm trying to say is that just because a place is "local" doesn't mean it's good. Your standards should be somewhat higher than that.
Another voice for grinding your own. Last week we made amazing homemade chorizo sausage from $0.87/lb pork shoulder. About 30 minutes of effort.
I'm an unapologetic if restrained (AKA balanced) meat eater - not a PETA "it's so deeeeeezgusting!" type, but think I would be a vegan by now if I couldn't rinse off and grind my own nice, recognizable, relatively safe single cut of meat and not worry about what kind of floor sweepings I'm having. Even under the most stringently monitored conditions, putting thousands of cows' parts through the same grinder to me sounds about as safe as condom recycling.
@YOXIM: I guess I should have clarified and said reputable and local. I have two in my area that I swear by, and never buy meats anywhere else.
Doveryai, no proveryai.